Three classic Shakespeare plays coming to Prague's Estates Theatre

Prague Shakespeare Company presents three classic Shakespeare plays on three nights at the Estates Theatre. Macbeth is first on July 4, followed by King Lear on July 5 and The Tempest on July 6.

The plays are in
English and will have Czech surtitles from the translation by Martin
Hilský.

The plays will
feature long-time PSC members along with participants from PSC’s
Summer Shakespeare Intensive (SSI) training program.

PSC’s Guy Roberts
stars as Macbeth in that play, and also directed and did the fight
choreography. Roberts will appear in the upcoming 2020 historical
action film Medieval (Jan Žižka), the most expensive Czech film
ever made, in some of battle scenes, so he should know a bit about
fighting.

Jessica Boone stars
Lady Macbeth. She was in 2017 Michael Apted film Unlocked and the
recent TV series Crossing Lines and Das Boot. She has also done voice
work in animation.

Other PSC members in
the cast include Jeff Smith, Scott Bellefeuille, Taylor Napier, John
Poston, Vanessa Azyzah Gendron and Julie Gibson Josephson. SSI
participants will play the chorus of witches.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s best-known and most performed plays. PSC has presented it before, and their production focuses on some of the darker aspects of the historical tragedy of a man who kills his way to the top, only to be haunted by his actions.

King Lear is
directed by Australian-based actor and director Kevin Hopkins, who
has extensive experience on the stage in Melbourne as well as some
film and TV appearances. Fellow Australian actor Peter Hosking, long
a resident of Prague, appears as Lear.

The play, in which
the king tries to divide his kingdom among his daughters, is
considered by many to be Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. It is
based on the legend of an ancient Celtic king, and the lead role is
one of the most sought after by actors, following that of Hamlet.

Hosking has appeared
in films such as The Catcher Was a Spy (2018), Borg vs. McEnroe
(2017) and the 2017 TV series Britannia. His acting experience goes
back to 1979, and in 1988 he had a small role in A Cry in the Dark,
starring Meryl Streep as a mother who says the classic line, “The
dingo’s got my baby!”

The Tempest, one of
Shakespeare’s oddest plays, is directed by Carolyn Johnson, who has
extensive theatrical experience from stages in Houston and Chicago.
Fellow Houston actor Jim Johnson stars as Prospero. He has worked as
a coach in dialects and accents, and has aided some top stars such as
Hal Holbrook and Aidan Quinn.

The Tempest gave the
English language phrases such as “brave new world,” “sea
change,” “strange bedfellows” and “stuff that dreams are made
of.”